COVID-19

[oren]

Thank you El Cid.
Bbr - you say IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) but you mean TPFR - total population fatality rate. These numbers are very important but your terminology confuses the issue.
Greylib - your method suffers from aggregation and countermeasures. When parts of a country are hit hard and other parts have not been infected, aggregation hides the true situation. Focus on locations that had a very high infection rate, and you will see different numbers. New York City, Mexico City, and some of the bbr examples above. And Ischgl, the minuscule location Neven is basing his numbers on. Countermeasures mudy the issue because some people say no lockdown/masks/distancing are needed, using numbers from locations that did employ strong countermeasures. Find numbers from locations with no countermeasures or that acted very late, such as Lombardy or New York City.
IFR is bounded by total population fatality rate, and also bounded from below by the same method. In a location with good healthcare, we have not seen total TPFR higher than 0.4% - yet. In NYC infection rate was ~30% accordind to serology. Had they not employed a lockdown it probably would have reached double that and herd immunity. So with current NYC TPFR of 0.32%, IFR clearly cannot be "clearly 0.2% at most" as Neven claims. Science-based evidence, simple as that.
But it cannot be more than 1% either, 0.32%/30%.
Thus 0.5%-1% is true IFR unless health system is non-existent or collapses.

Should we have hysteria and dictators? I think not. But denying the above math is simply wrong. Facts are facts. Denying them on a science-based forum makes me emotional, I admit.

[bbr2315]

Thank you El Cid.
Bbr - you say IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) but you mean TPFR - total population fatality rate. These numbers are very important but your terminology confuses the issue.
Greylib - your method suffers from aggregation and countermeasures. When parts of a country are hit hard and other parts have not been infected, aggregation hides the true situation. Focus on locations that had a very high infection rate, and you will see different numbers. New York City, Mexico City, and some of the bbr examples above. And Ischgl, the minuscule location Neven is basing his numbers on. Countermeasures mudy the issue because some people say no lockdown/masks/distancing are needed, using numbers from locations that did employ strong countermeasures. Find numbers from locations with no countermeasures or that acted very late, such as Lombardy or New York City.
IFR is bounded by total population fatality rate, and also bounded from below by the same method. In a location with good healthcare, we have not seen total TPFR higher than 0.4% - yet. In NYC infection rate was ~30% accordind to serology. Had they not employed a lockdown it probably would have reached double that and herd immunity. So with current NYC TPFR of 0.32%, IFR clearly cannot be "clearly 0.2% at most" as Neven claims. Science-based evidence, simple as that.
But it cannot be more than 1% either, 0.32%/30%.
Thus 0.5%-1% is true IFR unless health system is non-existent or collapses.

Should we have hysteria and dictators? I think not. But denying the above math is simply wrong. Facts are facts. Denying them on a science-based forum makes me emotional, I admit.

Thank you Oren, you are correct, I will revise language moving forward / my mistake!

Also I think all aspects of your post are correct. The IFR appears to be .5-1% for overall populations but mortality is very focused within specific groups.

[blumenkraft]

It's not an either/or situation, either COVID is real or it's all one massive conspiracy.  It's both/and.  COVID is real and there is some major dirt happening right now.

Let me just add, a pandemic is not needed for a malicious governmental player to play their dirty game.

All that stuff attributed to the pandemic does occur without any pandemic around, for decades, mostly without any scrutiny from the now oh so concerned ones.

So, why do people make this connection? Easy, it's made a political issue by trump and other fascists. How scientific thinking people can fall for that is beyond me.

Beware, Covid is causing covidiotism!

John, hope you feel better. Get well soon.

[Neven]

Neven, I get the feeling the "OMG" post above is said jokingly. However, I think you did say terrible things, and I cringed reading that post. Among other things, you implied Sam was "a paranoid, germophobe, OCD hypochondriac" and this did not fall within forum decorum, IMHO. It's your forum and you can do as you please in it, but I feel the need to voice my position on the matter anyway.

I would like to state a couple of things:

First, the ASIF is not mine, I'm not even paying for it, and my time has been somewhat compensated by donations (that I don't accept any longer, as I'm not doing anything of value wrt Arctic sea ice). I am also not the reason this forum has become what it is, it's entirely the doing of the community, of each and every member contributing their small share. The only thing I can take credit for, is for being a type of person who likes to create conditions for things to have a chance to grow and become successful.

I'd advise anyone to not project themselves onto anyone on the Internet, or onto any human being, period. Because all human beings are flawed. If you create this image of me that I'm some great guy doing great AGW communications work, etc, you will wind up disappointed when you see me argue about COVID-19. That's not my fault, I'm imperfect to begin with, but rather it's because of your projections on me.

So, don't let those projections or your respect for me as the founder of the ASIF get in the way. If I'm out of line, push back, correct me, modify my posts if needs be, heck, I might even put myself on moderation if you ask me to. 

What I reacted to in Sam's post was his assumed superiority that allows him to call vast swathes of people stupid and dumb. Everybody's stupid. Sam's stupid, I'm stupid, blumenkraft is stupid, oren is stupid, everyone is stupid, period.

And what Sam's 'superior intelligence' inevitably leads to, is de facto paranoia, germophobia, hypochondria and many a pointing of fingers towards the stupid trumpvoting covidiots who should be forced to do the right thing through shaming and fear. Another thing politicially correct and civil 'smartness' may lead to, is societal collapse.

Now, I'm no big fan of consumerism and the way societies are increasingly being enslaved to increase concentrated wealth, but to push lockdowns and germophobic measures will cause the whole house of cards to collapse (as the main thing holding it up is trust and confidence in the system). Go ahead and try to solve AGW and other global problems when that happens.

As someone (greylib?) already pointed out: As soon as Sam received some pushback, he immediately clutched his pearls and walked out in indignation. That says enough about how big his ego is, and the opinions of people with big egos should always be taken with a grain of salt. He pushed extreme scenarios, even when couched in careful, verbose language, and those scenarios have shown not to hold up. COVID-19 isn't the alien killer virus it has been (and still is) presented to be.

It's a nasty disease for those who get it, but there are many nasty diseases, and none have ever received the extreme amount of overhyped sensationalist attention that this has. The reason it does, is that a crisis can be used to speed up developments that would otherwise take much longer, and profits need to be maximized wherever they can. That's what is happening, because of the system that is dominating societies around the world. That system needs to change or be replaced (and not through collapse).


Later today, I will quote the Swiss Policy Research website as it has been updated, and it's full of evidence that shows the official narrative is wrong and has been wrong from the start (because it's propaganda).

[oren]

Thanks for the response Neven.
To be clear, Sam did overestimate the severity of the virus, he was wrong, though he gave good arguments at the time when little was known about the virus. In any case, I highly value his contributions, though leaving was his own decision.

Swiss Policy Research is a misinformation website, on the level of AGW denial, though focused on Covid instead. I guess you will not be convinced by my saying so, but it really is so.

[Neven]

I don't like analogies with AGW, because both phenomenons are so vastly different. I have seen COVID-19 denial on social media that is similar to climate risk denial, but there is also criticism and relativizing perspectives from a vast range of very serious people with expert knowledge in some form of other. Part of the propaganda is to categorize any criticism under the nomer of 'conspiracy nutter misinformation', and then so-called 'cancel culture' does the rest by putting pressure on people to conform.

For some reason, many people want an official narrative to become collectively accepted as reality, because then it will be reality. This inherent human desire for a simple and understandable world is easily manipulated and abused.

So, if you don't mind, I'm going to quote from that Swiss Policy Research website later today, because it's the only thing on the Internet that provides a thorough overview of all the criticism on the official SARS-CoV-2 narrative.

[gerontocrat]

While everyone is arguing the data for the World & the USA is starting to look like the Tesla Share Price graph.

Remember when Fauci said 60k dead would be a good result for the USA?

[gandul]

I suspect that what Neven means is that, once the old and weak have died by the laws of nature (virus) and medical treatment has improved and the virus possibly mutates to become more contagious but less fatal, then, final tally, one would not expect a global IFR > 0.2%

Which may be the case, but anyway it’s a very sad to factor in the old and weak population cleansing. It’s presented as the natural course of life, almost as a plus.

I was asking myself if there’s an index on how many people get disabled by the virus. A lot of young people end with severe chronic problems (message to Neven, it’s not the flu).

Perhaps a second virus can end with all these crippled, so that the healthy and strong can keep walking the walk.

It all has a eugenics bad smell...

[blumenkraft]

It all has a eugenics bad smell...

Yes indeed! Smells like rotten flesh. The smell that makes you vomit reflexively.

[nanning]

starting to look like the Tesla Share Price graph

Hahahaha nice. "What do I know.. " hahaha.
gero, you have entertainer talents .

[Tom_Mazanec]

Arguing for a higher mortality is a mathematical impossibility. (meaning tha if everyone has been infected and 1% of the population died, how could you have 4-5-10% mortality?)

I don't think that "everyone has been infected". If they have, then that is bad news because more and more cases are popping up and this indicates you don't get immunity from surviving an infection.

[dnem]

I hesitate to wade into this one, but here goes.

I am sympathetic to a lot of Neven’s views.  The “world order” for lack of a better term (the neoliberal hegemony?) is deeply corrupt and badly broken. The entire sad descent of our species over the next decades will be marked by “disaster capitalism,” wealth concentration, xenophobia, totalitarianism, and bad faith. The response to SARS-CoV-2 is just an example of this trend. It behooves the media to push a disaster narrative as that sells. While there are glimpses of honorable behavior, big pharma and other large capitalist actors will use this crisis to make a buck. It’s what they do.

I’ll also agree that huge swaths of humanity are poorly nourished, fed bad quality food by the industrial ag system, are overweight, beset by “lifestyle diseases,” sedentary, out of shape and on and on. This undoubtedly makes them less able to fight off a dangerous, novel virus. But rather than see this as somehow part of the hype about COVID-19, I see this as yet another part of the system that Neven rails against. Advancing this argument and then declaring “If you weren’t all so unhealthy you’d be fine” is victim shaming. So many are so unhealthy because the system is so unhealthy.

But these issues are just the setting within which the novel corona virus outbreak is occurring. Yes, they are making it worse, in some ways. But to me the data are quite clear, in areas where the virus really gets going without mitigation measures, it can be disastrous. Just contemplate what would have happened had NYC gone through just one more doubling.  It would have been a cataclysm. I still worry about what will happen this winter when a virus fatigued world faces seasonal flu and the lack of physical distancing imposed by winter weather.

[Tom_Mazanec]

I know this was a bit controversial when I first did it, but would it make sense for me to post another poll, now that we know more about this virus/disease?

[vox_mundi]

Why Extreme Heat is So Alarming for the Fight Against Covid-19
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/7/10/21311766/covid-19-coronavirus-heat-wave-hot-texas-arizona


Phoenix is expected to reach 120°F this Sunday

... The combination of extreme heat and a fast-spreading virus in the Sun Belt is now creating a new set of problems that could undermine efforts to control Covid-19. From hampering surge capacity plans for hospitals to increasing people’s likelihood of getting exposed to the virus while sheltering indoors from the heat, heat can make things harder. And temperatures are poised to rise even higher in the southwest in the future due to factors like the urban heat island effect and climate change.

Early in the pandemic, many hoped summer weather would reduce the transmission of Covid-19. Based on patterns with past coronaviruses, some scientists suggested that factors like ultraviolet light on sunny days, humidity, and heat could potentially reduce the spread of Covid-19 by impairing the virus itself. But the evidence from the United States and other parts of the world shows warmer temperatures have done little to curb the rise in new cases.

“In the context of this escalating pandemic, weather is pretty far down on the list of things that influence spread,” said Katherine Ellingson, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Arizona, in an email.

For a state like Arizona, it can be difficult to go outside at all for days at a time.

When temperatures get searingly hot, people spend more time in enclosed spaces, which presents the greatest opportunity for infection if the virus is present. “I’m actually really worried about indoor transmission,” said Davidson Hamer, a professor of global health and medicine at Boston University. “It’s so hot in the Southwest US that people are not outside. They’re being driven inside, so then you have all the issues of aerosol transmission and recycled air, a lot of which honestly we don’t fully understand yet.”

Another key concern is that with so many people infected now, there may be a rise in new Covid-19 infections within households as people shut doors and windows and switch on the A/C.

Workplaces for people with essential jobs can also become major sources of transmission as they switch on cooling systems and seal off the outdoors.

While most people can avoid the most extreme heat, not everyone has access to air conditioning or can afford the power bills to pay for it. Places like Maricopa County in Arizona do operate public cooling shelters for people who don’t have access to their own cool spaces. But that also creates another opportunity for people to gather in an enclosed space.

Another issue during heat waves is that air pollution tends to get worse on hot days. Pollutants like ozone form more readily in high temperatures, which in turn can exacerbate breathing problems. That’s particularly troubling for a respiratory infection like Covid-19 that has shown a link between more severe illness and air pollution. In poorly sealed buildings, that outdoor pollution can become indoor air pollution, often leaving the poorest residents of a city little respite.

Extreme heat also poses problems for the response to Covid-19. As hospitals approach their limits of beds, they may struggle to implement their backup plans.

Things like outdoor tents and temporary clinics like those deployed in New York City are much harder to set up in the heat and more expensive to run when they have to be air conditioned. “Those capabilities quickly go out the window,” Popescu said.

---------------------------

[Archimid]

First things first:

Sam. Neven is talking about IFRs, calculated with serologies and statistics. Sam, at the time, was making educated cases with CFRs, calculated with molecular tests, and highly variable. The momentaneous simple global CFR today is 4.4% Which is right where Sam calculated, and above the calculations of others.

 At many times in this thread, IFR and CFR have been used interchangeably. That is wrong.
CFR is useful for healthcare workers. Hospital managers, doctors, nurses. IFR is useful to epidemiologists, economists and politicians.

Now that we have serologies we can glimpse at the IFR. IFR seemed to range anywhere from 0.2% with optimal care and young population to > 1% in older population and substandard care.

Without any medical care, IFR is somewhere in the 5% - 10% range.

[blumenkraft]

'I thought this was a hoax': Patient in their 30s dies after attending 'COVID party'

“This is a party held by somebody diagnosed by the COVID virus and the thought is to see if the virus is real and to see if anyone gets infected,” Dr. Appleby said.

According to Appleby, the patient became critically ill and had a heartbreaking statement moments before death.

“Just before the patient died, they looked at their nurse and said ‘I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not.”

Link >> https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/i-thought-this-was-a-hoax-patient-in-their-30s-dies-after-attending-covid-party

No, this is not just one case. People are committing suicide without even realizing it en mass. And then they realize what they did when it's already too late.

Imagine that moment you realize you are going to die for stupidity. And what pain you are forcing onto your own family and friends.

[Archimid]

All the hospitals are full': In Houston, overwhelmed ICUs leave COVID-19 patients waiting in ER

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/all-hospitals-are-full-houston-overwhelmed-icus-leave-covid-19-n1233430

Houston hospitals have been forced to treat hundreds of COVID-19 patients in their emergency rooms — sometimes for several hours or multiple days — as they scramble to open additional intensive care beds for the wave of seriously ill people streaming through their doors, according to internal numbers shared with NBC News and ProPublica.

I can't imagine what will Trump cultists think when they are asphyxiating and the hospital has no room for them. Will they see how seriously deceived they were or will they double down on their projection and just blame Obama?

[Tom_Mazanec]

I can't imagine what will Trump cultists think when they are asphyxiating and the hospital has no room for them. Will they see how seriously deceived they were or will they double down on their projection and just blame Obama?

The "cultists" will do the latter.

[Neven]

I suspect that what Neven means is that, once the old and weak have died by the laws of nature (virus) and medical treatment has improved and the virus possibly mutates to become more contagious but less fatal, then, final tally, one would not expect a global IFR > 0.2%

No, what I mean, is that in a relatively healthy population with an average demographic spread the IFR will be 0.2% at most, which is comparable to a heavy influenza season (especially considering the fact that influenza isn't novel).

Which may be the case, but anyway it’s a very sad to factor in the old and weak population cleansing. It’s presented as the natural course of life, almost as a plus.

No, that's not how I present it. I say that if there's a system that makes people sick through stress, bad food and addictions (to increase concentrated wealth), that makes zoonosis more likely through the destruction of ecosystems and wild animal trading (to increase concentrated wealth), that promotes excessive flying and mass tourism (to increase concentrated wealth), that stimulates overmedication, while hollowing out health care systems (to increase concentrated wealth), it is no wonder that when a pandemic comes along, lots of people are going to die.

The pandemic isn't to blame (especially if IFR is 0.2% or lower), but rather the system that sacrificed resilience for efficiency (to increase concentrated wealth.

Death is a natural course of life, and should be accepted as such (even though westerners have the hardest time doing just that). Mass death doesn't necessarily have to be natural, especially when caused by a system that is very far removed from nature.

Now, one can either be a grown-up and say: Well, apparently as a society, the decision has been made to set things up this way, and so either the consequences must be accepted, or things should be set up in a different way (and one must look at the real causes to be able to do this).

Or, one can remain a child, blame the symptom and demand a cure for that symptom.

I was asking myself if there’s an index on how many people get disabled by the virus. A lot of young people end with severe chronic problems (message to Neven, it’s not the flu).

Yes, lots of diseases do that. Ever heard of cancer? Do you know why there is so much cancer nowadays?

It all has a eugenics bad smell...

That's because you misinterpret what I write. And you misinterpret what I write, because you are being told from all directions that anyone who criticizes anything related to SARS-CoV-2 is an insensitive trumpvoting covidiot, probably paid by Putin to troll. And you know what? Some are. But I'm not (I like to believe).

[Neven]

Interesting interview with a Swedish doctor who is obviously not a covidiot:

[pietkuip]

No, what I mean, is that in a relatively healthy population with an average demographic spread the IFR will be 0.2% at most, which is comparable to a heavy influenza season.

What is a healthy population? Arguably, it would be the population of a country with high longevity. Which means a country where there are many old people.

And those old people are at a high risk of dying with this disease.

It is one of the explanations for the high mortality in Sweden. A large proportion of the elderly got influensa vaccinations, which was one reason for the increase in life expectancy in recent years. Now there is a new virus for which there is no acquired immunity.

So I don't expect that it matters much how much pizza or veggies people are eating or how much exercise they make. Not for the average mortality in this virus.

[JMP]

Lastly, we suffer from a lot of stupidity in society, even among very otherwise bright people, substituting memes and thumb-rules for knowledge. The meme that antibiotics are useless against viruses is one such. It is mostly true. In specific cases like with COVID it is wrong and false. In large part that comes from a shorthand in thinking that things do only one function. Often there are overlaps in really strange ways, where the simple rules don’t actually or always work.

Sam

Sam, Thanks, for your insight - please don't go.

[El Cid]

No, what I mean, is that in a relatively healthy population with an average demographic spread the IFR will be 0.2% at most, which is comparable to a heavy influenza season (especially considering the fact that influenza isn't novel).

I don't know where you got this 0,2% but unfortunately it is NOT true.

Some examples:
NYC 25% infected 0,25% died
Spain 5% infected 0,05% died
Small Italian towns 60% infected 1% died

etc etc, there are many many more examples, all showing 1% for the whole age spectrum.

Iceland had 0,2% but it is a very small sample (10 dead in total), and if you multiply the given cohorts' mortality with their ratio in Iceland you would get 1%. Meaning: mortality was low in Iceland because very few elderly got sick, because they insulated them.

bbr has shown many counties with 0,3-0,5% mortality

So I still don't know where yout numbers come from.

[El Cid]

Texas/California/Florida:

I came to the conclusion that the flue/common cold and probably COVID all have a seasonality but not because of vitamin D. There are two reasons:
1) enclosed spaces
2) Cold air does something with our respiratory organs tham make us more susceptible to these. Aircon blows very cold air directly at you. Many people get cold if they are in airconditioned rooms for a while.

The second wave is starting and it is going to get bad, before it gets real bad, as autumn arrives in the NH

[Archimid]

A flu?

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

Estimated Flu death in the US by year:

2015 51,000
2016 23,000
2017 38,000
2018 61,000


Confirmed C19 deaths in the US to date: 136,671 and counting

Evidence has been posted here that this is a severe undercount.

[blumenkraft]

Temporal dynamics in viral shedding and transmissibility of COVID-19

Link >> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0869-5

44% of COVID-19 cases are the result of transmission during the pre-symptomatic phase. The median time of symptom onset is 5 days. Infectiousness begins at 2 days.

[GrauerMausling]

Neven,

I stopped posting because of pure ass stupidity and anti-science lunacy of many of the posts that were being made on this forum. I had enormous respect for yοu personally and all of the work you have done in creating and supporting the importance of  arctic ice awareness and dangers of climate change.

But your posts on this topic make clear that you fallen into a deep dark hole of misinformation, denial and bullshit.

I’m done. You are a loon.

Now we wait to see just how many people have to die because of morons such as you.  Tragic.

Sam

I'm also totally lost what happened to Neven.
What I see is that he is honestly concerned about the people he is now responsible for. But protecting working places is basically just a matter of money - whatever money really is, Modern Monetary Theory anyone? This could be handled by the government, and I think it actually is done - at least partly.
 
It does NOT help to deny they severity of the situation. PEOPLE ARE DYING! I really, really don't get it.....
This is very strange indeed.

[bbr2315]

Neven,

I stopped posting because of pure ass stupidity and anti-science lunacy of many of the posts that were being made on this forum. I had enormous respect for yοu personally and all of the work you have done in creating and supporting the importance of  arctic ice awareness and dangers of climate change.

But your posts on this topic make clear that you fallen into a deep dark hole of misinformation, denial and bullshit.

I’m done. You are a loon.

Now we wait to see just how many people have to die because of morons such as you.  Tragic.

Sam

I'm also totally lost what happened to Neven.
What I see is that he is honestly concerned about the people he is now responsible for. But protecting working places is basically just a matter of money - whatever money really is, Modern Monetary Theory anyone? This could be handled by the government, and I think it actually is done - at least partly.
 
It does NOT help to deny they severity of the situation. PEOPLE ARE DYING! I really, really don't get it.....
This is very strange indeed.

There is actually a legitimate argument to be made (IMO) that proceeding as normal would have a lesser impact on total life years lost as the burden of death when lockdowns are maintained actually begins shifting younger and younger via despair / etc.

"PEOPLE ARE DYING!" is the most ridiculous trope. People are always dying. You will die, so will I, everybody does it, in fact it is what humans do best. lol. Neven's point is that the current approach in many countries could actually be enhancing the relative loss of life and happiness and I think it is both valid and correct.

If a vaccine is not coming, then we are just delaying the inevitable, and infecting everyone in the summer wave is actually the most prudent course for moving forward.

[oren]

I have no problem arguing the policy of how to handle Covid. Money vs lives is a very old debate and the trade-offs are endless. But I have a problem with denying the facts of the virus, such as the IFR and the infectiousness, just because one opposes the potential policies derived from that.
Saying lockdown is a mistake is valid. Saying all should get the virus or that it should be eradicated is valid. But saying IFR is 0.2% or less is invalid, given the many facts gathered between January and now.

[John Batteen]

We can nitpick Neven's numbers but big picture I can kind of see some of where he's coming from.  Global industrial capitalism is a huge contributing factor to this pandemic and he stated the reasons very well.  It has made us more susceptible and also enhanced the transmission.  Furthermore I have absolutely no doubt we are being sold fear because it benefits the people in charge.  The situation really is analogous to AGW.  There's no doubt that the governments of the world have done their best to sell us AGW fear so they can enrich themselves and their donors with green BAU solutions.  The AGW and COVID threats are both very real and legitimate but the solutions being sold to us by our governments are not.  Rapid degrowth and a revolt against capitalism is the only real solution to either of them but when have you ever known a government to voluntarily give up power.

[Tom_Mazanec]

Official Covid-19 Statistics Are Missing Something Critical
https://elemental.medium.com/official-covid-19-statistics-are-missing-something-critical-155e1e153a2f

But these official statistics miss quite a lot. Specifically, they fail to represent Covid-19 morbidity — the harm that the disease causes, even in people that it doesn’t kill. In terms of measuring the long-term impact of the disease — and accurately evaluating risk — that’s a big problem.

[Tom_Mazanec]

As Pandemic Toll Rises, Science Deniers in Louisiana Shun Masks, Comparing Health Measures to Nazi Germany
https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/07/10/covid-louisiana-science-denial-anti-mask-mccormick-spell

In his 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World, astronomer and science writer Carl Sagan presaged, with trepidation, an America wherein “our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

After viewing some of my photos from the recent “Save America” rally, Mann wrote in an email: “These people, sadly, are the purest embodiment of Sagan’s chilling prophecy.”

[etienne]

If I look at the Luxembourgish data, the weekly average curve started to grow again around the 6th of June, that's about  10 days after the reopening of the restaurants and elementary schools. Shops and constructions site had been open long before and it didn't have an impact on the number of cases.
We had a long time with a very low increase, and so the government continued to open more activities, increase the number of people who can come together, and for example two weeks ago schools were again with full groups of kids.
This had an impact on the infection rate, but maybe mainly indirect. People felt very safe because so many things were open again and people increased their social contacts without keeping the protective behaviors.
The result is that we are in some kind of lockout. Summer holidays start next Thursday, and we might not be allowed to enter most other countries, which for Luxembourg quite problematic when talking of holidays.
We had a strong lockdown where  protective behavior were not needed, so we never learned it. Maybe a softer version would have been better because people would have got used to wear masks, keep physical distance...

Added : beginning of June, we had mothers' day, the 23rd of June is the National Holiday, and the results of the High School Diplomas are communicated in June, so many reasons to meet and celebrate.

[blumenkraft]

Saying all should get the virus ... is valid.

Only if you hate humans in general and have absolutely no problem with your spouse/father/son dying. Then it is totally valid.

Or when you think IQ 75 should be the new IQ 100. Because i have the impression this illness is making people lose parts of their cognitive abilities.

[blumenkraft]

VIDEO: President Trump wears mask in public for the first time during visit to Walter Reed Medical Center

Link to tweet >> https://twitter.com/bnodesk/status/1282068536731611142?s=21

Link to video without the tweet >> https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1282066162143186945/pl/uSd---rc7kcUi5WG.m3u8?tag=13

[oren]

Saying all should get the virus ... is valid.

Only if you hate humans in general and have absolutely no problem with your spouse/father/son dying. Then it is totally valid.

Or when you think IQ 75 should be the new IQ 100. Because i have the impression this illness is making people lose parts of their cognitive abilities.

To be clear, I do not hold that position. But if someone believes all are going to get it in the next year or two, I can see merit in the argument that all should get it soonest so the survivors can go on with their lives (I would argue back). But that someone cannot argue for this strategy while claiming death rate is a quarter or a tenth of what it really is. Agree on the facts, then discuss policy. Don't deny the facts because you don't like the policy.

[blumenkraft]

To be clear, I do not hold that position.

I know, mate. Sorry if i made the impression that i thought this was your opinion.

[El Cid]

I understand Neven's point and agree with oren on this one.

You can definitely argue that lockdowns cause more harm than good.

Every year 1,35 million people die in car accidents. Why don't we stop cars from operating? Or why don't we reduce the speed limit to 50 km/h? That would save a million lives a year. Why not do it? Why not save lives?

Every year 400 thousand people die of malaria. Every year millions die of maluntrition. Why don't we do something as drastic as these lockdowns to save them? We could. Shouldn't we?

So I agree that arguing tradeoffs is perfectly valid and it is somewhat of a hypocrisy to say that we should do everything to avoid deaths from COVID and do nothing about every other cause of death (obesity, diabetes, accidents, malaria, malnutrition, etc etc).

If we put as much effort in greening the economy and creating healthier societies as we put in fighting COVID, the payoffs would be much bigger. So why don't we do it? Why do we focus solely on COVID?

(the answer is that individuals of Western civilizations suddenly, out of the blue face the threat of immediate death and are scared to shit)


((and a final note: yes, this could have and should have been stopped with the right measures pretty quickly and "cheaply" both in human lives and in monetary terms, that would have been the optimal choice, but that road is now unfortunately closed))

[Archimid]

You can definitely argue that lockdowns cause more harm than good.

Lockdowns are not optional. Lockdowns will happen when hospital services become overwhelmed. What happens to the IFR if hospital services are overwhelmed? It rises to almost match ICU rate. Your cars and malaria argument becomes obsolete by the sheer numbers of this virus without medical services.

It is false to assume that lockdowns are optional. The only real option is when to lockdown.

Lockdowns will happen when hospital services are overwhelmed. Given Wuhan, Italy, Spain and NYC we know that from the start of lockdown ( hard lockdown) to the number of new cases going down to manageable levels takes several weeks. So the moment for a lockdown is about 3-6 weeks before hospitals get overwhelmed.

In societies that have low C19 prevalence and plenty of hospital beds, the goal is to establish the least intrusive but most protective measures possible to keep cases as low as possible for as long as possible while keeping the society working.

Then if the efforts are not enough to keep R<=1, lockdown as hard as possible for 3-6 weeks, bring cases down, rinse repeat until cure/vaccine/immunity.

Almost assuredly the IFR will keep decreasing, immunity will increase, and eventually, the extra risk of dying a lonely death or killing grandma because you went out to eat disappears.

[Neven]

If we put as much effort in greening the economy and creating healthier societies as we put in fighting COVID, the payoffs would be much bigger. So why don't we do it? Why do we focus solely on COVID?

Because the media is running a full-on propaganda operation, without any context or perspective, and that's enough to make people think there is nothing else in the world but this. Social media has compounded the problem. It's the latest chapter in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

Today it's COVID-19, tomorrow it will be some other hyped-up crisis that allows for a rapid advancement of bad stuff, enforced by the people itself. That's why I have hardly any hope left for humanity.

But the Austrian TV news yesterday, after its regular daily dose of Twenty Minutes Corona, had a segment on the Arctic. That was awesome.

[Neven]

Here's an excerpt from the Swiss Policy Research website. There are many links in there that I'm not going to copy manually, and I've bolded one bit to show that this isn't just some crazy conspiracy nutter covidiot source of information:

On the health risks of Covid-19

Why is the new coronavirus harmless for many people, but very dangerous for some people? The reason has to to with special features of the virus and the human immune system.

Many people, including almost all children, can neutralise the new corona virus with an existing immunity (due to contact with previous corona cold viruses) or through antibodies on the mucous membranes (IgA), without it causing much damage.

However, if this does not succeed, the virus can penetrate the organism. There the virus can cause complications in the lung (pneumonia), the blood vessels (thromboses, embolisms), and other organs due to its efficient use of the human ACE2 cell receptor.

If in this case the immune system reacts too weakly (in older people) or too strongly (in some younger people), the course of the disease can become critical.

It has also been confirmed that the symptoms or complications of serious Covid-19 disease can last for weeks or even months in some cases.

Therefore, the new coronavirus should not be underestimated and early and effective treatment is absolutely crucial for patients at risk.

In the longer term, the new coronavirus could develop into a typical cold virus, similar to the coronavirus NL63, which also uses the ACE2 cell receptor and nowadays affects primarily young children and nursing patients, causing upper and lower respiratory tract infections.

[Neven]

July 2020

On the development of the pandemic

In most Western countries, the peak of coronavirus infections was already reached in March or April and often before the lockdown. The peak of deaths in most Western countries was in April. Since then, hospitalizations and deaths have been declining in most Western countries (see graphs below).

This development also applies to countries without a lockdown, such as Sweden, Belarus and Japan. Cumulative annual mortality in most western countries continues to be in the range of a mild (e.g. CH, AT, DE) to strong (e.g. USA, UK) influenza season.

After the end of the lockdowns, the number of corona tests in the low-risk general population has increased strongly in many countries, for example in connection with people returning to work and school.

This led to a certain increase in positive test results in some countries or regions, which was portrayed by many media and authorities as an allegedly dangerous increase in “case numbers” and sometimes led to new restrictions, even if the rate of positive tests remained very low.

“Case numbers” are, however, a misleading figure that cannot be equated with sick or infected people. A positive test can, for example, be due to non-infectious virus fragments, an asymptomatic infection, a repeated test, or a false-positive result.

Moreover, counting alleged “case numbers” is not meaningful simply because antibody tests and immunological tests have long shown that the new coronavirus is up to fifty times more widespread than assumed on the basis of daily PCR tests.

Rather, the decisive figures are the number of sick people, hospitalisations and deaths. It should be noted, however, that many hospitals are now back to normal operation and all patients, including asymptomatic patients, are additionally tested for the coronavirus. Therefore, what matters is the number of actual Covid patients in hospitals and ICUs.

In the case of Sweden, for example, the WHO had to withdraw the classification as a “risk country” after it became clear that the apparent increase in “cases” was due to an increase in testing. In fact, hospitalisations and deaths in Sweden have been declining since April.

Some countries have already been in a state of below-average mortality since May. The reason for this is that the median age of corona deaths was often higher than the average life expectancy, as up to 80% of deaths occurred in nursing homes.

In countries and regions where the spread of the coronavirus has so far been greatly reduced, it is nevertheless entirely possible that there will be a renewed increase in Covid patients. In these cases, early and effective treatment is important (see below).

Global Covid-19 mortality is currently – despite the significantly older population nowadays – a whole order of magnitude below the flu pandemics of 1957 (Asian flu) and 1968 (Hong Kong flu) and in the range of the rather mild “swine flu pandemic” of 2009.

The following charts illustrate the discrepancy between “cases”, patients and deaths.

Charts can be found at the source.

[Neven]

On the lethality of Covid-19

Most antibody studies have shown a population-based Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of 0.1% to 0.3%. The US health authority CDC published in May a still cautious “best estimate” of 0.26% (based on 35% asymptomatic cases).

At the end of May, however, an immunological study by the University of Zurich was published, which for the first time showed that the usual antibody tests that measure antibodies in the blood (IgG and IgM) can detect at most about one fifth of all coronavirus infections.

The reason for this is that in most people the new coronavirus is already neutralised by antibodies on the mucous membrane (IgA) or by cellular immunity (T cells) and no symptoms or only mild symptoms develop.

This means that the new coronavirus is probably much more widespread than previously assumed and the lethality per infection is around five times lower than previously estimated. The real lethality could therefore be significantly below 0.1% and thus in the range of influenza.

At the same time, the Swiss study may explain why children usually develop no symptoms  (due to frequent contact with previous corona cold viruses), and why even hotspots such as New York City found an antibody prevalence (IgG/IgM) of at most 20% – as this already corresponds to herd immunity.

The Swiss study has in the meantime been confirmed by several more studies:

A Swedish study showed that people with mild or asymptomatic disease often neutralized the virus with T-cells without the need to produce antibodies. Overall, T-cell immunity was about twice as common as antibody immunity.
A large Spanish antibody study published in Lancet showed that less than 20% of symptomatic people and about 2% of asymptomatic people had IgG antibodies.
A German study (preprint) showed that 81% of the people who had not yet had contact with the new corona virus already had cross-reactive T-cells and thus a certain background immunity (due to contact with previous corona cold viruses).
A Chinese study in the journal Nature showed that in 40% of asymptomatic persons and in 12.9% of symptomatic persons no IgG antibodies are detectable after the recovery phase.
Another Chinese study with almost 25,000 clinic employees in Wuhan showed that at most one fifth of the presumably infected employees had IgG antibodies (press article).
A small French study (preprint) showed that six of eight infected family members of Covid patients developed a temporary T-cell immunity without antibodies.
Video interview: Swedish Doctor: T-cell immunity and the truth about Covid-19 in Sweden

In this context, a US study in the journal Science Translational Medicine, using various indicators, concluded that the lethality of Covid-19 was much lower than originally assumed, but that its spread in some hotspots was up to 80 times faster than suspected, which would explain the rapid but short-duration increase in patients.

A study in the Austrian ski resort of Ischgl, one of the first European “corona hotspots”, found antibodies in 42% of the population. 85% of the infections went “unnoticed” (i.e. very mild), about 50% of the infections went completely without (noticeable) symptoms.

The high antibody value of 42% in Ischgl was due to the fact that Ischgl also tested for IgA antibodies in the blood (instead of only IgM/IgG). Additional tests for mucosal IgA and for T-cells would undoubtedly have shown even higher immunity levels close to herd immunity.

With only two deaths (both of them men over 80 years of age with preconditions), the population-based covid lethality (IFR) in the “hotspot” Ischgl is significantly below 0.1%.

Due to its rather low lethality, Covid-19 falls at most into level 2 of the five-level pandemic plan developed by US health authorities. For this level, only the “voluntary isolation of sick people” is to be applied, while further measures such as face masks, school closings, distance rules, contact tracing, vaccinations and lockdowns of entire societies are not recommended.

The new immunological results also mean that “immunity passports” and mass vaccinations are unlikely to work and are therefore not a useful strategy.

Some media continue to speak of allegedly much higher Covid lethality levels. However, these media refer to outdated simulation models, confuse mortality and lethality, or CFR and IFR, or “raw IFR” and population-based IFR. More about these errors here.

In July, an antibody prevalence of allegedly up to 70% was reported in some New York City districts. However, this is not a population-based figure, but rather antibodies in people who had visited an urgent care center.

The following graph shows the actual development of corona deaths in Sweden (no lockdown, no face mask obligation) compared to the forecasts of Imperial College London (orange: no measures; grey: moderate measures). Swedish annual all-cause mortality actually is in the range of a medium flu wave and 3.6% lower than in previous years.

Again, there are many links in the text that aren't reproduced here.

[pietkuip]

You can definitely argue that lockdowns cause more harm than good.

Lockdowns are not optional. Lockdowns will happen when hospital services become overwhelmed. What happens to the IFR if hospital services are overwhelmed? It rises to almost match ICU rate. Your cars and malaria argument becomes obsolete by the sheer numbers of this virus without medical services.

It is false to assume that lockdowns are optional. The only real option is when to lockdown.

Sweden managed without a hard lockdown.

Very few things closed: universities and highschools converted to distance teaching; concerts, nightclubs, amusement parks were forced to stop operations; care homes had to exclude visitors. For the rest there was the official "general advice" which many people followed. Most churches did not have Sunday services.

Most restaurants stayed open, but few people went dining out. Hair dressers were open but there were very few weddings this spring.

We pay for this with a covid death rate that is still higher now than in countries like the Netherlands that had a harder lockdown. But I think the Swedish approach is more sustainable: socially, psychologically, culturally, and yes economically.

[Archimid]

I looked up  "Swiss Policy Research"   in google and google classifies the group as:

Types of site: Propaganda, Conspiracy theory

Even then, I wanted to trust the source so I clicked deeper.

I stop clicking soon after.

[Pmt111500]

To quote a fecebook ad: 'they should be told wearing a mask prevents government surveillance by face recognition and stops you from breathing chemtrail-materials.'

https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/07/10/covid-louisiana-science-denial-anti-mask-mccormick-spell?fbclid=IwAR2CdJ7m4Xe6nGsMU3HZ7tZnWBeWokAIDGK9QNEzptsX-H5ex9i6PcWBgng

[Archimid]

We pay for this with a covid death rate that is higher than in countries like the Netherlands that had a harder lockdown.

That is a huge understatement.

Country  C19 fatalities
Sweden  5,526
Norway  252
Finland  329

But I think the Swedish approach is more sustainable: socially, psychologically, and yes economically.

Sweden's approach skipped a step. First, you protect life, bring the cases down to the lowest level possible, and then implement Sweden's approach. That's what Norway and Finland did and they are up thousands of people.  The true economic impact was minimum.


And if you think other countries will show the civil responsibility that not just swedes but Europeans showed, you are mistaken.

Also winter. The same rules apply for winter but instead of 2 weeks of doubling time, you will have 3 days. The shutdown will be obligatory if there isn't a cure by then, even for Sweden.

I think and hope better antiviral should be here by winter.  Better antivirals mean a shorter hospital stay and a lower IFR, maybe even below 0.1%. Even then it will be a challenge, but less deadly. That's a huge win.

[etienne]

You can definitely argue that lockdowns cause more harm than good.

Lockdowns are not optional. Lockdowns will happen when hospital services become overwhelmed. What happens to the IFR if hospital services are overwhelmed? It rises to almost match ICU rate. Your cars and malaria argument becomes obsolete by the sheer numbers of this virus without medical services.

It is false to assume that lockdowns are optional. The only real option is when to lockdown.

Sweden managed without a hard lockdown.

Very few things closed: universities and highschools converted to distance teaching; concerts, nightclubs, amusement parks were forced to stop operations; care homes had to exclude visitors. For the rest there was the official "general advice" which many people followed. Most churches did not have Sunday services.

Most restaurants stayed open, but few people went dining out. Hair dressers were open but there were very few weddings this spring.

We pay for this with a covid death rate that is still higher now than in countries like the Netherlands that had a harder lockdown. But I think the Swedish approach is more sustainable: socially, psychologically, culturally, and yes economically.

The question is not if closures are needed, but what needs to be closed. I'm sure that people living in countries with less restrictions learned how to live with the virus. I find the case of Iran very interesting because they have a flat level of infection at about 20 cases per week per 100'000 inhabitants. That would be something acceptable, but the press doesn't speak much of Iran. I wonder how they managed it.

I still believe that what was possible in Sweden in not possible in many other countries. A low density of population is a major advantage. Even if hotspots are in cities, I don't believe that Stockholm and London or Paris have much in common regarding density.

Regarding which policy was the best, I think that it is just too early to conclude anything, but one thing is sure, real scientific information is required if people should learn how to manage it.

Added  1: I believe that a hard lockdowns are the result of a panic attack at the government level. This is generally due to the fact that no actions have been taken in time in order to avoid the catastrophe.

Added 2 : Iran and Israel have a second wave of cases, but also of deaths https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iran/   https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/israel/ In Luxembourg, we only have a second wave of cases. I wonder how it will continue. Also in Sweden. But again, Sweden might have the second wave later because people might be more often outside right now to enjoy the weather. At least when I was there during the summer 5 years ago, we lived mostly outside.

[blumenkraft]

Number of Days Since Last Peak of New COVID-19 Cases for each US State (on a 7-Day Average)



Link >> https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/hpol2c/oc_number_of_days_since_last_peak_of_new_covid19/

[Neven]

We pay for this with a covid death rate that is still higher now than in countries like the Netherlands that had a harder lockdown.

Isn't the general opinion in Sweden - also the government's - that the relatively high amount of deaths is due to the failure to protect risk groups, ie the elderly, better?